


Seeds of Discord Part 25

by kbj1123



Series: Wonder Woman & Captain America [26]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Crossover Pairings, F/M, One True Pairing, Sexual Content, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:11:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3410123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbj1123/pseuds/kbj1123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone or something is causing violent riots to erupt all over the U.S., and whatever it is, it wreaks havoc with both Wonder Woman's health and Bruce Banner's ability to keep his rage in check.</p><p>Aftermath of battle, part 2</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds of Discord Part 25

“Your job is to trust her.” He thinks back to Thor’s words as he absorbs what Diana’s just told him. “Nice job there, Rogers.” The sky darkens, casting long shadows across the floor, but he doesn’t get up to close the blinds or turn on lights. “I know we would have loved it,” she says into his chest, soaking his shirt. He kisses the top of her head. “I love you more,” he says. He means it. He’d like to kick himself for his own idiotic jealousy. “Maybe I would’ve guessed too if I wasn’t so fixated on keeping her close,” he thinks. Then again, she didn’t even know herself. He sighs and she leans more deeply into him. 

Knowing better, he asks a question anyway. “Diana?” She looks up at him. “Do you want Bruce here? I mean, to help you meditate or calm down or something?” It’s an asinine test. He is fully aware of this. She pulls away and looks perplexed. “I only want you, my love, but I appreciate the thought.” He knows he’s blushing, and he feels foolish. The love of his life nearly died and miscarried. “And here I am making it about me. Oh boy, I’m a piece of work,” he thinks. “Why are you afraid?” 

It’s a good question. Diana watches him, waiting for an answer. He stares off into the dark room in search of an acceptable one and finds he comes up short. “I would have carried it, Steve. I love you and I love the idea of having children with you, growing old together, spending eternity together. Love isn’t a finite quantity, though. I took an oath to you, and to us. I keep it gladly and it brings me joy. I don’t understand why you are so afraid.” 

He says nothing because he has no answer. She shifts closer to him and runs her index finger along his spine. “Diana, when we were in New Orleans and Miss Sarx flirted with me were you jealous?”

She chuckles. “Of course not.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she says, “even though you clearly found it flattering, I know where your loyalties lie. I know your heart. I trust you with mine.” She drums her fingers over his arm. “Do you not trust me?”

Even he knows that’s a loaded question. “Yeah, of course I do,” he replies truthfully. “I just don’t trust everyone else with you. I mean, you kind of walk a thin line between friendly and affectionate with people sometimes.” As soon as the words come out he knows they’re the wrong ones. He can tell because her nails dig into his forearm. It was another stupid thing to say. She’s at least as strong and fast as he is.

“I am calm right now,” she replies, “because of the lessons Bruce has taught me about mindfulness. “I am not tearing the flesh from your arms because my sisters have taught me to control my temper. I will not stop showing love to the people I love. I do know boundaries, though. Shall I find a chaperone for the times I am out of the apartment without you, just in case?”

“Sorry,” he says quietly. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It is what you meant, Steve. Look at me.” She lifts his chin in the crook of her finger so that their faces are at eye level. “I gave up my throne, my home, and my immortality for you. I didn’t have to. This world would have survived without me. I am here because I cannot imagine being happy without you. My heart, my mind, my body all find their way to you. I desire you in ways I can’t begin to understand. But you need to loosen your grip on me. I am yours, but I do not belong to you. What will it take for you to really know this?” 

He looks down and focuses on the palms of his hands. They are almost completely healed from a couple of days ago. He wants more than he has language to describe. Diana has not dropped her steady, questioning gaze. It might feel better if she was accusing him of something, but she only wants the information. All she wants is for him to understand that she loves him. He feels about two inches tall. She deserves an answer though, so he tries again.

“I don’t think I want to possess you, Diana. I really don’t. It’s more like I want to lose myself in you. I see you, and I don’t even have words sometimes. It’s like I’m so close to you, and if I can only get a little closer, I’ll be complete.”

Diana sweeps her legs over the edge of the bed and stands up. She undresses and kicks her clothes into a pile. “Then yes,” she says, very gently.

“What do you mean ‘yes?’ You’re still healing.” Even as he says this he feels his pulse start to quicken, along with inexplicable fear as if he’s just been given a test.

“I am healed,” she replies. She sounds as if she’s offering a matter-of-fact solution to an obvious problem. “We are in this room as a formality, but, as you have pointed out many times, I am not like human women. I am perfectly healthy. And I mean, ‘yes.’ Lose yourself in me then. I am here. I love you. Let me be here for you.”

He is standing now but has no recollection of making the decision to do so. They stand less than a foot apart, staring at each other. A thousand thoughts race through his mind. Inexplicably, he thinks about the first time they made love, and how nervous he was, and is now. He thinks about the courtship ritual he’d endured on Themyscira, and about how he’d had no idea how much she’d suffered quietly as a part of it. He remembers the day not so long ago when she’d tied herself in her own lasso, and let him possess her. This woman became ill and later nearly died. An evil goddess severed what would have been their baby from them; and then she apologized to him for all of it. He has no right, he thinks, to even breathe the same air. And she wants to grant him this gift. His best impulses tell him to pull her back to bed and stroke her hair and kiss her and let her sleep. 

Instead, he peels his shirt off and pulls her closer to him. He feels the tension leave his body when he bends toward her and nuzzles his lips into her throat. Her pulse pounds into his lips. Warrior goddess that she is, she has proven herself so very fragile over the past twenty-four hours, and he is no longer sure whether he wants to protect her or strike the final blow and devour her. He moves his mouth to hers and can’t stop kissing her. She barely moves; instead she floats into him, skimming her hands over his waist, then the small of his back, and rests her fingers over his waistband. “Go slowly, my love. I’m here,” she whispers. He moves one hand down to undo his pants and shifts his weight until they fall to his ankles. Then he pulls her back so that he can step out of underwear and socks. 

He keeps her at arm’s distance again for what feels like interminable minutes because he doesn’t want to stop looking at her. Her long, black hair blends into the dark room like waves creeping back toward the ocean. Her skin is flushed, but her face is absolutely placid and loving. Every nerve is on alert—he understands what fear is for the first time, because he is going to lose something vital one way or another: if he kisses her he cannot also take her in with his eyesight. If he keeps her in his sites, he can’t touch her. Ultimately, he takes a step closer and traces her jaw with his palm, and bends down to kiss her again. She emits a muffled groan, and he lifts her up by the buttocks and into the bed, and lowers onto her. She moves her hands along the length of his torso and kisses him back in earnest this time. She loves him, and she’s so much more breakable than she lets on. Maybe she doesn’t even know herself how delicate she can be. He can feel her heart thumping into his chest and some ferocious animal rips through him. He presses a hand along her left breast, down her abdomen, and to her thigh, which he pulls from behind and wraps around him before returning to that tender place where thigh and torso meet. It still isn’t close enough.

“I can’t wait anymore,” he mumbles into her throat. He knees between her thighs, hoists her legs up higher, and moves completely into her, pressing himself onto her breasts and belly, pressing his tongue deep into her mouth. She inhales sharply in genuine surprise. He doesn’t register it at first. There is only the sensation of need and heat. At some point, she is not there; there are only absolute necessity and two bodies, and he presses her closer into him until he finally groans in release. Only then does he notice something has gone wrong.

Diana’s eyes are wide open, and her hands are scrunched in loose fists on the sides of the bed. Her jaw, throat, and abdominal muscles are taut. She’s slightly chilly. He rolls off of her. His fingerprints have left bruises along her ribcage. She looks genuinely offended and startled. She sits up and gets out of bed, then bends at the knees to pick up her sweatshirt, without breaking her gaze. She reminds him of a stray cat, warily seeking food or shelter from a stranger. She pulls it over her head, then bends down again and puts on her panties. Then she stands there, looking unsure of what to do.

“I messed up badly, didn’t I?” He says.

She looks at him with absolutely no expression. “Have you finished with my body, for now?” Shadows from the night sky outside broadly cross over her body. She resembles an apparition in this dark hospital room, as if something has left her. 

“Oh god, Diana I am really sorry. That’s not how I meant it. I definitely know that’s not how you meant it.” He did this. He took her and used her and scared her. He feels slightly ill.

She nods slightly and sits in a chair next to the bed. Steve grabs up his boxers from the floor and sits in the chair next to her. Seconds go by; she doesn’t avert her gaze from him. “I had anticipated being more than merely flesh into which you could masturbate. That hurt.”

He deserved that. He wouldn’t have put in such polite terms, though. She doesn’t move. She fixes him with a stare that shows no emotion whatsoever and is quiet for what feels like a very long time. The silent tension is more imposing than any attack stance she could ever take. “Please say something,” he says after a few minutes. “Get angry. Yell at me if you feel like it. Call me whatever names you want, make me sleep in another room for the next month, just say something.”

Another infinity of seconds go by. “I forgive you,” she eventually tells him without breaking eye contact. He buries his head in his hands. “Say anything but that.” He is painfully aware that he has just committed an act of sacrilege. He wants to get on his knees and plead: not to the goddess sitting next to him, but to his wife, to whom he’s just shown his absolute worst impulses. He’s laid bare this shameful desire that he certainly can name, now, as can she. “I can’t even tell you how sorry I am.” He wipes tears from his face with his palms.

“I know you’re sorry,” she says calmly. “I know that I wasn’t clear about what you’d meant and you weren’t clear about what I’d said. I know you’re sorry. I will get over the…surprise. I forgive you.” She stands up and retrieves her sweatpants. After putting them on, she climbs back into bed and motions for him to join her. He dresses and then follows obediently. They lay facing each other on the narrow mattress. Tentatively, he slides an arm over her waist. She doesn’t push him away. It’s a truce. He wants to deny himself the luxury of peace for now, though, and begins his apology again. “Tell me what to do. How do I make this up to you?”

She smiles just a little bit, props herself up on her elbow. “You’d be a horrible nurse,” she tells him. “I thought I was supposed to be the one in need of extra care.” He moans and starts another apology, but she interrupts him. Smiling, she says, “I will say this: you are kind of endearing when you’re this contrite…in a sad puppy kind of way. We will transcend this, I promise. Can I have my husband back soon, though? I’m the one who needs comforting right now.” 

Steve laughs quietly. “I don’t deserve you.” 

Still smiling, Diana agrees. “Maybe so; just don’t leave me so far behind again. It’s unbearable. I am not an angel, as you keep insisting, nor am I a statue or a vessel.”

He nods. “I get that. I swear I do. Why aren’t you angrier?”

She says, “You are already punishing yourself. There is nothing for me to do but tell you I forgive you. If you didn’t feel so badly about how you just treated me, things might be different. If I’d felt attacked, I would have defended myself. I don’t think I understand what happened, but I didn’t like it. You know that, you are truly penitent, and I let go of anger and outrage a few minutes ago.”

When he sighs, he shakes a bit. “I love you more than I can even say.”

“I know,” she says, brushing his hair back. “I love you too. No more fear. No more running away and leaving me behind, okay?”

“Okay.”

She nuzzles in closer to him, and soon her breath turns light and even. He pulls the thin hospital blanket over them both and props himself up to look out the window again. It has begun to snow. He wonders what the hell is wrong with him. He marvels at Diana’s equanimity and ability to forgive, and thinks back to the differences between her mission and his during the War. He was meant to inspire support at home and then lead troops into battle. She was an emissary of peace. She embodies peace. It seems like such a small but significant difference right now. Gravity bears down in his stomach, lungs and heart, and all he can do is to sink under the weight. The snow falls in big fluffy clumps. It will not stop until it covers everything: the SHIELD campus, the Beltway, the East Coast. It will cover every trash-strewn alleyway and everything that is good and beautiful. He shivers and watches as the world becomes cold and pristine.


End file.
